I read that piercing ability relies on 50% strength and 50% dexterity, which tends to be much higher in nightshades and rangers, while blades rely 100% on strength, so it would seem that piercing ability would be better for Stealth classes.

Ok. But, my nightshade is lvl 5 with blades and lvl 4 in piercing, and I could swear that she did more damage at lvl 4 blades than she does with lvl 4 piercing. Hmmm.

So is the ability percentile 50%dex/50%str, vs. 100% str. what determines how much damage you do? or how often you hit successfully (your roll)?

Let's just say I get my **** kicked less often when using blades, than piercing weapons, but everyone insists you're better off using piercing weapons.

Also, I'm currently a lvl 30 weaponscrafter, and I can make much better blades than piercing weapons. lol. Hey, it's cheaper to make your own, and IMHO the quality is better. (I'll be lvl 50 today!)

So here's the big Q? Do blade weapons do more damage than piercing weapons? If so, it wouldn't seem to make much difference which one you trained in, until perhaps higher levels.

"Back to a topic someone said in a previous link about how rangers are somehow given dual wield now adays.. One of the main reasons is because of Dungeons & Dragon's "Forgotten Realms" series. An author (R.A. Salvatore) was given creative right to do just about whatever he wished to come up with in his stories. Before him there was some history, but nothing truly specific. R.A. Salvatore, created, Drizzit Do'Urden, a dark-elf with good tendencies, who later in life took up the ranger path. He had this character dual wield scimitars (Drizzit's father was a master bladesman for his House, and tutored Drizzit, as most young Dark elves are trained in the art of combat). Since then, there was a big craze for Drizzit and following stories.. before that, rangers did not get to dual wield in any text books, but after the novels, you started seeing the ability pop up in handbooks, guides.. even D&D computer games or clones gave the rangers dual wield.. due in large part to this *now famous* character."

Rangers have been around with DW long before ol' Bob there was writing books.

How i fight now (at lvl 20 nightshade): I wear a shield which blocks some hits. I start with a critical strike combo adding venom which deals damage about 5 times. If necessary i then quickly change to the second weapon and again apply additional venom (5 more) In between i work with a low piercing style and use a cs style when evading. I have no style which can take advantage of blocking right now.

What i would like to know: CS has a style at 29 which needs parrying 1) Am i right that while wearing a shield i will never parry, just block? 2) If 1) is yes: What determines the effectivity of blocks with a shield compared to parrying with two weapons (i have CD at 4)?

Some chars can parry and block, e.g., Warden, but they get the Parry spec line to train in.

So, yes, you will never parry while wearing a shield, but then you will never parry any way..!

The Leaper style was changed in patch 1.39 (I think), so that it chains off a Hamstring instead rather than needing a parry.

What determines the effectivity of blocking with a shield..? The Shield spec line (I think, but it's open to debate), but again 'shades don't get this either, so you can't effectively increase your chances to block either other than buying a better shield... :/

Okay, I have a question driving me NUTS If I just spec in CD will I still do good damage with weapons I use? Or will I need to spec in a weapon AND CD to get good damage from my weapon spec and good chance of hit with my CD spec HELP ME

Putting points into CD will only increase your chance of hitting your target with both weapons at the same time. You have a base chance (before you put any points into this skill), to hit with both weapons 25% of the time, i.e., one in four 'chance'. One point into CD increases your chance by .5% (half of one percent)

Putting points into your weapon style of choice will reduce the gap between your minimum and maximum damage dealt, i.e., a weapon with atk speed of 3.2 and DPS of 8.4 will do an average of 27 damage points but a with only one point in the skill its damage range would be 6 - 34, and at max points (i.e., equal to your current level), it would be 27 - 34. THIS IS ONLY AN EXAMPLE BASED ON RELEASED INFO. OTHER FACTORS ARE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT LIKE YOUR STATS, ETC.

So based on the above and IMHO, it is worth more to put points into your primary weapon skill, than CD. But saying that, I intend all of my CD chars to have 16CD points, which gives me a 1 in 3 'chance' to hit with both weapons simultaneaously. I am not putting points into CD for its styles. The only CD style I used was at early levels and was the evade opening style Blinding Rain.

You can play your ranger however you want, and have fun. If you blow all your trains into bow.. fine.. your just limiting your skills, which you get alot of good ones. Most of your skills (as a ranger) dont need to be extremely high (except maybe for pathfinding, and thats only if you want your uber self-only buffs and speed) Ill list for my ranger and explain some things:

Stealth: 16 *decent enough and I get a few specials, like detect hidden.. It will work well enough for most situations*

Recurve Bow: 30 *this is where ppl will say, "WHAT?!" Rangers are the primary archers of Hibernia.. but your last spcl is at 27 i think.. at 30 is fine, bc as you go up in lvls and RvR pts.. and with better magic items.. your RB will increase beyond 30.. and you really wont notice a **** of difference when your out on the RvR field. Your main targets are going to be casters and non-shield tank types. Most of the time you can pretty much kill em with 2-3 shots. Really wont make that big a difference and you can save all those points and put them elsewhere where you really CAN see a difference.

Pathfinding: 40 *Here i get most all the buffs and speed (except the highest of each line). Good for solo and group *when you help the tanks*

Piercing: 39 (this could be blades but I play a Luke :) *This gives you a higher damage output and a variety of spcls to use with it. Not bad at all.

Celtic Dual: 39 *This compliments your piercing/blades. Alot of spcls with skill this high and you will swing both weapons alot more each round.

This will make your ranger able to accomplish a variety of tasks when needed, instead of.. well.. ill just pull.. or... ill just stand here and shoot at it. *Alot of ppl run out of arrows or dont want to waste some of their remaining*

Back to a topic someone said in a previous link about how rangers are somehow given dual wield now adays.. One of the main reasons is because of Dungeons & Dragon's "Forgotten Realms" series. An author (R.A. Salvatore) was given creative right to do just about whatever he wished to come up with in his stories. Before him there was some history, but nothing truly specific. R.A. Salvatore, created, Drizzit Do'Urden, a dark-elf with good tendencies, who later in life took up the ranger path. He had this character dual wield scimitars (Drizzit's father was a master bladesman for his House, and tutored Drizzit, as most young Dark elves are trained in the art of combat). Since then, there was a big craze for Drizzit and following stories.. before that, rangers did not get to dual wield in any text books, but after the novels, you started seeing the ability pop up in handbooks, guides.. even D&D computer games or clones gave the rangers dual wield.. due in large part to this *now famous* character.

As to the "Rangers are Archers!" statement, Rangers are archers.. acutally they are another type of fighter... actual bowmen trained in not just bows.. but shortswords or spears as well. If you want to be a "nothing but shooting character" be one, but dont criticize someone else that wants to be different, or bring out the full potential of his character.

And way back to "Celtic Dual" Yes, this increases the amount of times you swing with BOTH weapons. The damage the individual hits do, is based upon the weapon and your BLADES/PIERCING Skill. Your CD skills just amplify those BASE things.

Hope that helps to clarify some things. Enjoy the game and your characters, Rorn Svunere :)

If that works for you Great. personly I think that stealth is too low for safety. I play a ranger and a hunter as well. at level 33 my hunter has a stealth of counting items, with that amount of stealth You can get right up ontop of someone before they notice you, even assassin classes dont see you from too far away. while I probably wont raise my stealth too much more, at this point Im specilizing in counter snipping in RVR. and those low stealth archers are easy prey, even when orange to me I can get in close enough to /stick on them if I want and release a crit shot into their backs while they are hoping to get a lucky non-bladeturned shot on some mage. The few that have gotten away so far have run and stayed away for the rest of the battle. As far as raising your pathfining, sure thats great, but if the primary buffers know your job is clearing stealthers from their area and you can mele with the best of them, then those buffers will be more than happy to give you a full line of buffs, from my experiance even if that means leaving a light tank unbuffed, so the pathfinding isnt exactally the end all of skills. unless your solo only and with the changes to boost RP in groups why would you solo anymore.

There seems to be a lot of questions as to if training in a specific combat skill other then duel wield is worth it, for example training in blades too. Well, here it is straight from Mythic:

"Your specialization in the weapon type determines your "range" - the number between the minimum damage the weapon can do and the maximum. Let's say someone with no spec in sword can hit, with a certain type of sword, for as low as 5 points and as many as 20. If you have points in that type, you could still only hit for a max of 20, but your damage floor would be higher - let's say 10. The more spec points, the higher the floor. So being speced in a weapon type means you will over time do a much higher average damage than someone who is untrained."

So, in short, yes you should train in a specific skill as well since it affects how much damage you do.

I hope this clears things up.

I found this in the mythic knowledge base (customer support FAQ) and searched under "damage." The answer is under "What do the stats on my weapon mean?" question.

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to exactly what duel wield does. Here is exactly what it does straight from Mythic:

"You wield a weapon in each hand. Each attack round, a coin is tossed - heads, you swing the right hand weapon, tails you swing the left. The speed of the attack is determined by the speed of the "winning" weapon. Damage is assessed for each swing based on the spec points you have into that damage type, just as it is if you're using a single weapon.

In addition, there is a 25% base chance of swinging both weapons. That's if you never put a single spec point into dual wield - the more you spec in dual, the greater the chance of swinging both weapons."

I am a 29 blademaster on Galahad and I've read a few things about the topic. What seems to correlate the most with my experience is that your CD skill determines the chance of your offhand weapon swinging whenever your main hand swings. So blademasters need a fast main hand weapon and a high CD skill. This allows the off hand to swing more as well. Speed on the offhand weapon probably only determines how often the off hand weapon will swing alone, so it seems the least important. Offhand weapons usually have better speed anyway though, because they are smaller. Blades should be kept to at least half spec for the damage bonus if you're using blades (I am). I'm actually looking for more data on blades/blunts/percing specs. I need to know at what amount of spec your damage increases. I know it increases at half spec, but is it also 2/3 spec, 3/4 spec and full spec? Anyway, parry should be kept high because you don't have a shield and you get a CD style at spec 25 that requires you parry first. It's pretty nice.

okay...i have a level 6 ranger and its much fun...what is this about celtic duel wield? i know i can use two weapons, but it wont let me train in celtic duel wield((it doesnt show me as having the specialzation at all...cant scroll or anything)) which doesnt make sense....i had another ranger that was able to train in celtic duel wield before, at level 6... were the rules changed or something?

Wow... you are all pretty silly. Celtic Dual is your weapon skill for wielding 2 weapons. It has nothing to do with how often your left hand swings. It is how well you fight with 2 weapons. If you are using 2 weapons then you are using your celtic dual skill and not piercing or blades.

Dont waste points in both, just CD

I got a 45 ranger who hits just as hard as a friend who stopped doing blades at 30 skill because we figured this out.

I'm pretty sure the reason that rangers get CD is the long standing tradition for rangers in general to have this skill..or something similar. If you want some proof that this has seeped out into the general public, check out Legolas in Lord of the Rings (two long daggers/falcata thingies strapped to his back), or the Baldur's gate series, which is I believed based of the AD&D rules(Rangers w/o a shield get an extra attack every round...just as if they were carrying another weapon!!). As for CD vs Pierce/Blade...put the dang points in your weapon before you put it in CD...who care if you hit 20 times if you do no dmg? If it takes you 30 hits to kill a mob, you won't be alive by hit 20.

I have made a blademaster and have been talking alot to other blademasters, it seems that blade skill effects your min damage, strength max and celtic chance to hit with both weapons, so for a blademaster wouldnt it make sense to put blades and CD to 50 because were mainly melee, and take parry to 28 i beleive. After some rvr we could get 55 blades and CD from bonuses...making us a killing machine.

I could swear that each time you train skill, let's just say..blades, your weapon skill (THACO equivalent IMO), increases. So say your skill is 50, you level, and now its 58. You raise that weapon skill 1 point, now its 65.

With that in mind, I ask this: Is it better to train blades and/or piercing as much as possible with your extra points, or is it best to do celtic dual, or neglect dual and use a shield thereby going wiht the first, maxing out your weapon type? As a scout on morgan le fey I know shields kick ****, but scouts can't dual wield so it was never a thought. So as a ranger with low hps, low dmg, low af..do you want to hit twice, or block? Yes, this is opinion, but..have any of you tested this out?

There are all kinds of different ways you can play your ranger. You can be a sniper with high stealth and bow and nothing into melee and low path.. Or you can be a melee ranger, everything into piercing or blades, Celtic duel, and path split as even as you like. Or you can be something that I find pretty cool.

You can max spec bow, medium stealth, medium celtic duel, medium path and low pierce or blades I choose pierce because I am a lurk.

You still have a the dmg of a sniper but with not as much hiding. But see rangers suck at hitting mobs with daggers and they suck at hitting red and purple cons for the most part. I have found that raising celtic duel really does count. It makes you hit twice in one ratio. The more you put into cd the more you hit with both the offhander and main at the same time. All putting points into pierce or blades does is raise minimum damage so don't worry about it so much because we get great dmg spells that give us more damage everytime we hit a mob.

So if you have a good CD and a nice damage spell then even if you do hit minimum damage almost everytime with you daggers or swords the dmg spell will hit the mob also. So if you can duel wield good you can hit the mob for more than twice the damage of a person with a CD.

Allright, Im just about to install this game onto my computer and i need some advice, in your opinions what is the Best Class of the ones if name off... Champion,Blademaster(Celtic Duel),Hero, or Archer. I want to have a great character when i begin playing the game so if you could respond i would be very happy, thanks!

I was wondering if someone can help me or advise me. I have a lvl 9 Blademaster. I am about to reach lvl 10 right away. I have allocated the following: 9 - Blades 7 - Parry Savced the remaining points. I want to celtic dual but should i continue with Parry?

Also, what armor can a Blademaster use? I try Reinforced but it seems to slow my swing. I am wrong in this assumption?

Actually, I saw a thread on camelot.rpglore.com about doing a melee-based ranger, and it made some sense. The idea was to have a class that could easily kill casters and archers by getting fairly close with stealth, then using the forest shadow line of spells to reach them before an arrow could be nocked or a spell cast. The idea has some merit, although it would be very hard to get this class variant up to RvR levels. It would probably only be doable with constant power leveling and twinking. Still, I'd be interested to see someone make this work.

kinda agree with rangers not needing duel, its nice for group do be able to dish out a lil bit of xtra dmg but why not blast with bow from afar? and as for peirce vs duel... if i have peirce is it smart to do duel as well?

Celtic Dual raises the chance of the weapon in your off hand will be swung. I forget the actual percent... The offhand weapon's minimum damage is calculated by the level of that weapon's skill. So if you have a bladed weapon.. it'll run off your blades. Be reminded that this does not affect the MAX damage ONLY the MIN damage. Max damage is raised w/ a combo of weapon skill + large weapon skill.. and only one class gets that.

Finally if you get 2x per level you should have enough points to raise 2 skills up to 50. Then have no points for anything else. This game uses the idea that variation is good and makes you choose which path you'd like to take. Each path has its own advantages and disadvantages.. and if everyone picks the same path..... well the same strategy that kills joe shmoe Blademaster with your same skills, will kill you also. Choose wisely and make up your mind. Oh and they added points in the middle of levels 45-50.. or was it 40-50.... and i forget HOW many points those were.. but look for character generator sites out there, there are a lot of them. Good luck.

Thanks, you sound like you know what you are talking about and I appreciate the info. I'm new to this game and I want to make sure I develop my character the way I want to play. One other thing, you mentioned a "charater generator", I've never heard of that, what is it?

1) Celtic Dual is used to determine how much damage is done with your left hand. 2) I should train in Blades, CD and lastly Parry (In my case).

With that said, Blademasters get 2 times their level in training points when they level. If my math is right, that means they get 200 training points until they hit the max level of 50. Okay, here's the big question, How the **** am I supposed to get CD, Parry or Blades up to level 50? I will not have enough training points to train in all of them up to level 50. I would have to train in one skill until level 50 is reached. Now I may be wrong with how many training points you get, so someone tell me so I can sleep at night.

Since at level 6 and after you get twice your level in training points, you have enough to train in both your weapon skill of choice AND Celtic Dual once per level each. I hear that when you reach the home stretch (40-50 or thereabouts) the amount of points you get increases even further, making up for the 14 points you never got (since you dont start getting double points til you hit 6), meaning you can get two skills both to level 50, and have points left over for, say, parry.

The Celtic Dual skill determines how often you hit with the weapon in your left hand, not how much damage it does. Your weapon skill determines how much damage it does. If your secondary weapon is a blade, it uses the Blades skill.

Also, once you get CD, each time you swing your right hand, your left hand makes a check with CD to determine if you swing your left. So the more often you swing your right, the more you swing your left, meaning that a fast, not powerful, weapon is best in your right hand.

Parry is purely optional, but if you want to train in it, don't just put a little. You need a substantial amount of training to get tangable benefits, which are excellent. It isn't nessecery to train either Blades or CD to level 50 in order to do well with them, but you won't get max swings or damage if you don't.

From what I know Celtic Dual affects if and for how much damage you will hit with your LEFT HAND weapon. This info is supposedly from beta testers who discussed this with the devs. So, to the contrary of what is said in some of the below messages, it looks like it does make sense to train this skill.

As a Ranger, I see no need to up this skill. We have so many other priorities that this skill does not seem very important.

First off, we have bows. This should be the main focus of my time considering Rangers are generally defined by archery. I plan on bringing this skill up to 45 or 50.

Next, we get stealth. As rouges, this skill should be high up on this list of what to train. It enables us to sneak around as spies and get in good position for long distance arrow shots.

Pathfinding is another major plus. The buffs included with this class are excellent. If I remember correctly, at higher lvls we will get a +75 buff to both dex and qui. These are our primary and secondary stats. We also recieve a str buff which will boosts our tertiary (third) stat.

This leaves us with the two weapon skills left. Piercing and Blades. Obviously, you will want to pick either Piercing or Blades, but not both. Personally I'd go with Piercing becuase it is greatly enhanced by our uber dex and qui.

Lastly is Dual. Dual will only slightly increase our damage output. Sure it is a nice skill to have, but does it really seem that important compared to our other options? I think not.

I'm very interested in seeing the opinions of other rangers on this subject. Please give your imput.

Rangers=dead in close combat against any other melee class. They use bows, thats why they are rangers. They only gave this to rangers and nightshades so they could attack with 2 weapons. This skill is really just for blademasters, who should spec in this and in parry. Using spec points in this doesn't make your dual wield any better, it just gives you attacks with 2 weapons at once.

Chance to hit is level based, not skill based. You can actually only spec in CD and totally neglect any weapon spec. This is called the Ginsu Ranger template, and allows you to use either blades or pierce. In conjunction with Pathfindings Self Damage Add, and the excellent Evade styles CD provides, you can do very well with just CD and no weapons spec. (At 25 we get Evade III, BMs only ever get Evade I so they get almost no benefit from the Blinding Rain => Blizzard style chain.)

Look at weapons styles for Pierce vs. CD, and the fact that Mythic just nerfed the only decent style chain for Pierce, and you'll find that CD is in fact a really great option for Rangers. (Especially since Mythic just upped the CD damage output in the last patch.)

My other nightshade got celtic dual upon reaching lvl 5 and he had most of his skill points in blade skills vs. piercing, however my latest nightsahde who has all of his points in piercing and none in blades did not get cletic dual at lvl 5... So my question is whether or not you can get celtic dual without trainign your blade skill?